'Neighborhood News': A Summary of Events from Episode 5

I would say the majority of issues I have seen relate to nurses feeling their patient load was too much which may possibly result in unsafe patient care. This typically relates directly to staffing issues.

The term burnout, according to Catalano, is a continuing depletion of energy and strength combined with a loss of motivation and commitment after prolonged exposure to high occupational stress (2015). When a unit or facility is understaffed, not only do the nursing staff get burnt out, the patients also don’t receive the quality of care they deserve. Due to the increase in workload, nursing staff are more prone to making mistakes and medical errors and sometime times do not fellow facility policies. The nurse-patient ratio aspect sometimes gets overlooked at and that could lead to possible medication errors, lack of communication, falls, neglect, abuse and/or death may occur. Sometimes, it become so overwhelming people turn to leave the workforce all together. When nurses and CNA workload increase, they become frustrated and unhappy, and the desire to leave

As  many  of  the service  users  within  the  hospital  may  already  be  in  a  vulnerable  state,  the  exposure  to  smoke may worsen  their  condition if not addressed quickly. Some of the effects of smoke exposure to a service user  already  suffering  from  respiratory  problems  can  include  the  inability  to  breathe  normally, excessive  cough  with  or  without  mucus,  discomfort  in  the  chest  and  wheezing  or  shortness  of breath.  All  problems  that can lead to more serious problems if not looked at and fixed as quickly as possible. Another problem that can occur during the case of a fire, can include a safety breach. When the fire alarm  is  set  off  inside  the  hospital  it  is  important  to  follow  the  procedure  and  get  everybody  to

With a shortage of nurses, the care and safety of patients may become compromised. The nurses themselves may be having feelings of dissatisfaction, overwhelm and distress. Nurses who may become overwhelmed with the high number of patients may become frustrated and burnt out. And inadequate staff of nurses may lead to a negative impact on the patient’s outcome. The quality of care the patients may receive in facilities with low staffing may be poor.

I would like to give you some insight as to the daily operation of a major Emergency Department in this city. Not unlike many other “ER’s” the nursing staff is tasked with the triage or assessment of patients in order to sort by priority. The nurse is then tasked with maintaining flow of the department and ensuring the timely care and physician evaluation of patients. This requires clinical nursing judgement and expertise which is tested constantly. To explain this plainly, nurses are faced with a meat grinder which cannot stop. There may be twenty patients in the lobby with ambulances lining up. The room nurses are trying to

Per Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines, it is best during massive fire events to withdraw from the area and let burn off take place (“NOAA”, 2017).

Nurse staffing have an effect on a variety of areas within nursing. Quality of care is usually affected. Hospitals with low staffing tend to have higher incidence of poor patient outcomes. Martin, (2015) wrote an article on how insufficient nursing staff increases workload and job dissatisfaction, which in effect decreases total patient care over all. When nurse staffing is inadequate, the ability to practice ethically becomes questionable. Time worked, overtime, and total hours per week have significant effect on errors. When nurses works long hours, the more likely errors will be made. He also argued that inadequate staffing not only affects their patients but also their loved ones, future and current nursing staff, and the hospitals in which they are employed. An unrealistic workload may result in chronic fatigue, poor sleep patterns, and absenteeism thus affecting the patients they take care of.

It began with the overwhelmed staff who were not only trying to care for the patients and proceed with the evacuation, but they

They gave them way too much time when in reality, they only receive 15 minutes per patient. The article made me think about how carefully I need to care for my patients and how quickly and accurately I need to move in order to help the ones in need. I will use this when focusing on my time management, to make sure I help all of my patients in an orderly time. Time management will further help me in the future with organization and to become more prepare with what I have as a task.For Further Study I want to know why the charge nurses and others are providing false information to the people who work with the patients. In the article, the author wrote a 5 step plan on how to fix the dimensions on the nursing assistance practices, but what I want to know is how are they going to enforce their plan of action? And what steps others can take to make sure they understand the plan. Without a good plan of action, there is a negative impact on society because not everypatient is getting helped at the time they need to be. More infections are increasing in the community because others are not being treated accurately or in the time given. If someone were not quick enough to the scene of someone is cardiac arrest, that person could die in minutes. It’s someone’s life that is on the line, so time management is highly important. If someone were to pass away because the health care worker was not on time, the industry would get sued and many would lose their jobs. Not enough patients are going to invest in that facility if they heard a patient passed away due to carless

“It is common for the hospital to post schedules with holes in them, meaning that not all the shifts are covered and they are short on nurses from the start. The crisis is predictable and inevitable. These crises are not foreseen or emergency situations, but rather ones that are planned, systemic and programmed for failure. They are not due to “call –ins” that the hospitals like to cite. Even so, there is absolutely no leeway for the event when a nurse does all in sick” (Twarog, 2011, p. 10).

The broad research problem leading to this study is the belief that nursing shortage in facilities leads to patient safety issues. The review of available literature on this topic shows strong evidence that lower nurse staffing levels in hospitals are associated with worse patient outcomes. Some of these outcomes include very high patient to nurse ratio, fatigue for nurses leading to costly medical mistakes, social environment, nursing staff attrition from the most affected facilities. The study specifically attempts to find a way to understand how nurse

These were my sixth (10/15) and seventh (10/16) night shifts following Meagan on the medical/surgical floor at Rady Children’s Hospital. On Thursday, the floor was full with 39 patients and we were unable to accept any more patients. Since it was so busy, Meagan and I stayed at the front of the floor where no one else was sitting to prevent distractions so that we could complete our assessments and charting in a timely fashion. Many patients were discharged during the day on Friday, so there were significantly less patients for my second shift on Friday night. However, it was still busy with 4 admits right at the beginning of shift, 12 nurses, and a total of 35 patients by the end of the shift.

On the 20th, night I met with the House Supervisor, Shannan Bird for my management clinical hours. We began our night by making rounds to each units, check and make sure that they don’t need anything, and how many beds are available. The ED was packed with at least 35 people, and more in waiting. I learned that the night before it was worse. The Med-surg units had to call in nurses because they were short on nurses. From 8-10 we did rounds, which was a lot of walking than I expected. By 10, the fire alarm went off because there were some guys in the atrium dusting off the hanging leaves after the construction by the elevator on the 3rd floor. I guess the dusting caused wires to react as fire or smoke. We basically had to run around trying to

Community emergency preparedness and response is “dependent on the willingness of communities to prepare in advance and to respond to instructions as events unfold” (Scutchfiled & Keck, 2009, p. 564). An emergency can be anything from a pandemic of influenza to a natural disaster that causes “disruption of access to health care in a community” (Scutchfiled & Keck, 2009, p. 564), such as the forest fire that has occurred in The Neighborhood TM Season 2 Episode 5 (Neighborhood, 2014). This certain forest fire impacted the entire community, particularly those who have respiratory problems; we are going to look at how it specifically impacted the hospital, senior center, the school, and the Bley household. The impact the health care workers and the public health care teams had on the response of the community in this state of emergency.

inflow of patients is higher than the available beds. You are treating an elderly man who is breathless and cyanosed. While you assess whether he has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or heart failure, he becomes drowsy and starts gasping. You quickly intubate him with some difficulty, prolonging his period of hypoxia, and put him on ventilator support. You then get a phone call from a senior consultant in the hospital that an important social activist is about to arrive with chest pain and will need to be admitted. You are directed to